These events demonstrate two necessary components of any successful effort to control the killing of elephants for their tusks — vigilance at the source and vigilance at the end-market. Yet the Gabonese bonfire and the arrests and guilty pleas in Manhattan raise a depressing question: Can any animal prized by humans and living in the wild be protected from the economic suction of the human appetite? The answer, when it comes to elephants (and many other species), appears to be no — at least not without vigilance on a scale we’ve barely begun to imagine.

Last year was the worst year for elephant poaching since the sale of ivory was banned internationally in 1989. Twenty-four tons of ivory were seized, most of it passing out of Africa via Kenya and Tanzania and destined for China and Thailand. This is to say nothing about the amount of illegal ivory that made its way around the globe without being seized. But whether you count captured tusks or elephant carcasses, one thing is clear: poaching pressure has been growing steadily more intense.

That, in turn, is a reminder of a basic fact in conservation. Cracking down hard on the source of supply and the illegal market is the right thing to do. But the long-term solution lies in improving the economic lives of the humans who live among elephants.

A version of this editorial appears in print on July 17, 2012, on page A24 of the New York edition with the headline: Ivory Poachers and Their Enablers. Today's Paper|Subscribe